Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of school-based intervention on grade one children. This study tested the hypothesis that children receiving teacher-mediated-intervention with Mediated Learning Experiences (MLE) - would make significant progress in the aspects of learning measured in this study. The participants of this study comprised 200 children, 100 from each of the two schools.

The two schools were purposefully selected from among government schools that enrol children with low socio-economic status (deprived), making the sample linguistically and culturally homogeneous. Matching was used in sampling the participants. The instruments used for assessment include audiometric hearing test, sound level meter, Self-Concept Scale, Motivation Scale, the Burks Behavior Rating, Scale, and the language and academic tests. Socioeconomic status, hearing level, school acoustic conditions and teachers’ professional competence were analyzed using descriptive statistics as well as qualitatively. A two way repeated measure ANOVA was used to measure the effects if the intervention

Results of this study revealed that socioeconomic status of parents in both the experimental and control group was extremely low. With regard to teachers, their competence during the post-intervention period included modern MLE. Many of sampled children in this study suffered from unilateral and bilateral borderline hearing losses. Both schools had a total of 13.5% children who had bilateral hearing loss. Research found that background noise at school was extremely disruptive for children’s hearing. However, the hearing level did not have a significant effect on the psychosocial functioning of the children. On the other hand, the intervention had a significant effect on the children’s psychosocial functioning. The effect was significant on all variables, except motivation. Besides, the effects were not dependent on the level of hearing. Therefore, hard of hearing children equally benefited from the intervention as much as the hearing children

Further information:

The dissertation is published in the series Jyväskylä Studies in education, psychology and social research 392; ISBN 978-951-39-3970-0; ISSN 0075-4625. Inquiries: tel. (014) 260 3487, myynti@library.jyu.fi.